"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND

Otago Witness, Issue 2666, 19 April 1905, Page 71

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND

(Specially written for the Witness Ladies' Page.)

ABOUT MEN AND WOMEN.

"Is marriage a failure?"' seems not so much a question of the hour as "Why don't the men propose?" Are men less ardent? Has the mating instinct become less strong as the intellectual and nevous force has developed? There are theories to prove anything under the sun, tor and against, but the old edict, "It is not good for man to be alone," holds, after generations and generations since the first recorded marriage of a man and a woman. No argument of ancient writ or modern philosopher would ever have convinced the lord of creation that, taking all his advantages of kingship into consideration, it was not good for him. to be alone in undisputed monarchy, had not his own individual experience proved otherwise. So he took unto himself a wife, that they twain might be of one interest. And it looks very much .is though the fewer interests man and women had together outside the marriage bend the. more anxious the man was to marry. In i;hese days of greater freedom betweei the sexes, irben education, mutual interest in sport and politics, has broken down the old formal barriers between them, and "woman is physically and mentally more of a companion to man than in the days of crinolines and curls, there is yet a falling off in the eagerness of men to take unto themselves a wife. It cannot be that iv-omen are less charming than formerly, for although they have lost much of their dependence, they have become infinitely less "nervy" and more companionable : their broader outlook and wider experience of life have deepened and matured their judgment, with the result that while they are less exacting, they have a greater appreciation of a man whose character and abilities are beyond the common, and this is, explained by the fact that the nearer ■view of life permitted than in the past lias educated woman sufficiently to enable her to understand the strength of a man who holds his own, at least, in these days of strenuous pushing forward. Not to want of appreciation of him, nor to the independence of herself, tnen. can the falling off in marriage be traced, but to the fact- tuat feminine companionship may be enjoyed freely without marriage. That good understanding between the sexes, that comradeship which was formerly a privilege more particularly of the married state, has defeated its own ends, if the chief end of a woman's education is to fit her for wifehood and motherhood. She has made her companionship too easily obtainable, and the acquaintance and friend takes as his right the intimacy which was once the privilege of the future husband.

In most of a man's pastimes a girl now takes a share. The girl may accompany her male friend on wheel or the motor ; share his hobby of photography, golf, cricket, boating, hockey. Oi what riot ; discuss with him every subject under the sun ; »sk him to her mother's home, her club ; accept his invitations to the theatre, etc., without the vulgar comments of her uncmancipated days, or papa dropping down on the young man to know his intentions. An this is very good for the man and the woman. By breaking down the morb'd and unhealthy over-restraints between the sexes women have gamed — undoubtedly gamed — in fibre of mind and body, and as undoubtedly men have gained also in re straint of word and action. Familiarity with woman's mind has not bred contempt as is proved by the enjoyment men of to-day find in the companionship of woman x>ut it is the easy access to that companionship which, unconsciously, perhaps, to the man himself, satisfies the very need of woman's comradeship which drove him frequently to matrimony. The women who do not desire to marry gain much without a loss of caste that would have "been impossible 50 or even 25 years ago ; but the women who do desire to marry find fewer men ready to propose, for a little observation will show that, as a rule, the men do not marry the girls whose companionship is made cheap to them. There is in most men something of the instinct of the hunter, and there is a zest and satisfaction in securing what is difficult and elusive.

Mr Alfred Suto's new play, "Mollentrave on Women," is drawing crowded houses to St. James's Theatre. Mr Mollentrave has shown his appreciation of the sex by marrying three times, and during all his wedded years kept a diary in which Be noted woman's characteristics, her moods and inconsistencies, etc., and considers himself, when the play begins, very competent to give advice in other people's love affairs, with the result of a good deal of -fun — and complications, as usually happens when a maxim is brought to bear ■upon a living moment. "I was an observer from boyhood," says Mollentrave. "lake Dante, I fell in love at the age of nine. Unlike Dante, I made notes. In the intervals of my self-imposed study I married three times. In short, you will find between these covers a most careful, complete investigation, on scientific principles, of the baffling, perplexing creature known to us as WOMAN."

In moments of crisis the chief actors in the drama refer to Mollentrav-e's note-book. Here are a few extracts : —

"Passion wins niaicb, and perseverance widows.

"Tho young couple, with the grains of rice stiil on them, start blithely across the marriage-links. Much depends upon the way they negotiate the first disillusion — or bun&erT

"Romance is a valuable asset with which to begin housekeeping', but there ar. times when it drops off like paper from a damp s?ail.

"The man who sums woman up in a sentence is the man -nhom women cwi fool with a phrase.

"What is love? An electric jpark, tlxat ili-es at irregular tangents, ftnd ricochets wildly from heart to heart. it soars upwards, and finds a lodging in the superior brain; then it descends, boomerang fashion, and leaps at the smile of a giil 1 The poets have babbled of love for all time ; philosophers look through their glasses, chemists dissect, and grammarians phrase ; but all that we know, or need to know, is that Cupid is — YOUIS"G." Have you read "The Garden of Allah," ; by Robert Hitchens? If not, there is a,tieat in store for those whose taste is above the common enjoyment of reading for the sake of the story alone, for every t>age is graphic, and sometimes contains magnificent descriptions, apart from the ' ttory, which I shall not tell you, in case !it spoils your keen interest. But the story is beautiful and uncommon, and the situation originally dramatic, although it lias to do with a4Jpuan and a woman, about wnom there is nothing left, it would seem, for tlie novelist to say. But this man e,nd woman in "The Garden of Allah" have a new story of old love — a story which evolved in the desert, ard which, as one fellows, appears impossible to have evolyed in other surroundings, and to be of fhe spirit of the silence and vastness, partaking of fhe simplicity and profundity of the solitude, where man meets no obstacle of convention and custom to interpose between himself and tlie Creator, but where his light and wrong goes very close to the heart of purity for judgment. This much I may say without filching Ih-c, readers riglit oi reading for himself. "Die heroine is a Tvoman of fine teniperame>nt, which at evary evolution of her life's story -deepened to indelible character. She had been baffled by her mother's sin and her father's falling from faith, and with an infinite yearning for the truth, of life and herself, leaves civilisation and the environment of society and custom, and gees out into the desert to find rest -and peace. Her journey is exquisitely told, and skews hmv, as she gradually leaves the city behind, her mind emerges into freedom. She at first travels by train, till the desert is reached. "A strange sense of leaving all things behind bad stolen over her. . . . She watched the great change that was coming over the land. It seemed as if God were putting forth His hand to withdraw gradually all thongs of His creation; all tho , furniture He had put into the great palace } of the world ; as if He meant to leave it empty and utterly naked. . . ." She leaned back watching as the train sped on. "First He took the rich and shaggy grass and all the little flowers tha*" bloomed modestly in it. Then He drew away ' the orange groves, and the oleander and apricot- trees, the faithful eucalyptus, 'with vis pale stems and tressy foliage, the sweet waters that fertilised the soil, making it soft and brown where the plough seamed 1 it into furrows, the tufted plants and giant leeds that grow where water is. And still, as the train ran on, His gifts were fewer. At last even the palms were gone. . . . Stones lay everywhere upon the grey -yellow or grey-brown earth. : . . under clouds that were dark and feathery, appeared hard and relentless mountains, which looked as if they were made of iron carved into horrible and jagged shapes. . . . Their summits were purple, deepening where the clouds came down to ebony. . . . She thought again of her father. In some such region as this his soul must be wandering, fur away from God." Then, as they get free of the locks and the mountains, into the wild, unshackled spaces, she v»Tis conscious of the soul in this boundless freedom. "For all religious were surely here, marching side by side, and beyond them, way back of them . . greater love than is in any creed. . ', She oould not think any longer of her j father as an outcast. . . . Thank God I for it," she murmured. Out in the marvellous desert she meets a man, and then her personal Ufe begins, aiid what her love and the man's love teaches them and makes them great enough to bear the reader will discover for himself. Another book which is being read with interest is "De Profundis." being pages fiom the prison diary of Oscar Wilde, published after his death, showing how he suffered and repented of his wasted life.

It was the only work he wrote in prison, and the last work in prose he ever -v\ rote : and in it he- shows in a, marvellously livid and interesting way the change in his nature which imprisonment brought out.

At first its only effect was to fill him with ' despair. While I was in Wandsworth Prison I louged to die. It was my one desire. When, after two months in the infirmary. I was transferred liere (Reading), and found myself growing gia'dually better in physical health, I was filled w ith rage. I determined to commit suicide on tho very day on which I left prison. After a time that evil mood pst£sed aivay, and I made ud my mind to lhe. but (o wear gloom as a king wears purple : never to ,

smile affain. j No one has ever described th" aopalling monotony of prison life more poignantly: — "With us time itself does not progress. Ifc revolves. It seems to ciir-lc round one centre of pain. The paralysing immobility of a life, e\ery circumstance of which is regulated after an unchangeable pattern, so that we eat and drink, ami lie down and pray, or kneel at lea^t for prayer, according to the inflexible I.^vs of an iron formula ; this immobile quality, that makes each dreadful day, in the , \Cry minutest derail, like its brolhor.

scpms to communicate it=olf to tho^e external forces the very •?ssjnco of whoso e\istt-nce is ceaseless change.

Of teed time or harvest, oi the rr>ar""rs

bending o\er the corn, or the grapo-gatherei-r, threading through tho \ mi's, of tho grass m the orchard mado \\ hue vw(h brohv'n blossom, or strewn wiih fallen fruit, of iho-c we know nothing, and can know iiotliiii£. For us there is only one season, thf> season of < borrow. The \cry sun and moon seem, taken from us. Outride the day may be blue and gold, but the light that ciceps down through the thicklymufti td glaoS of the smaJl, iron-lviireil v> indov. , be pea tli which one sits, i^ gvoy and mggat'd. It i*> alv.ays tvrihgafc in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's

Then tho unhappy man heard of the death of his mother. His nature broke down beneath the blow.

No one knew how deeply I loved and honoured her. Her death was terrible to mo ; but I, once a lord of language, have no words in which to expre°s my anguish and my shame. Sho and my father had bequeathed mo a name they

had made noble and honoured

I had disgraced that name eternally. I had made_ it a low by-word among low people. I had dragged it through the

a cry mire

"Very pitiful and pathetic, too, is the passage in vhich he tells of his anguish and agony of mind when he heard that the Divorce Courfc had given the care of his children into other hands. I bore up against everything with some stubbornness of will ancl much rebellion of nature till I had absolutely nothing left in the world but one thing — I had lost my name, my position, my happiness, my freedom, my wealth. I was a prisoner and a pauper. But I still had my children left..

Suddenly they were taken away from me by the law." It was a blow so appalling that I did not know what to do, so I flung myself on my knees, and bowed my head, and wept, and said, "The body of a child is as the body of the Lord ; lam not worthy of either." That moment scorned to save me. I f=aw then that the

only thing for me was to accept everything. Since then — curious as it will no doubt sound — I have bren happier. It was, of course, my soul in its ultimate essence that I had reached. — A Tragic Confession. —

From this moment his mood of bitterness began to soften. He began to realise what a terrible thing the failure of his life had been, and to see that he must build it up again upon a new foundation. That foundation was, strange as it seems in the case of such a man as Oscar Wilde, humility. I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand. The gods had given me almost every-

But I let myself be lured into

long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flaneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. . . Tirod of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensations. ... I grew care-

less of the li\es of others. I took pleasure

where it pleased me and passed on. . . I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only

on-e thing for m-3 now, absolute humility,

. . . And the first thing that I have got to do is to free myself from any pos-

sible bitte- ness of feeling against the world. Of course he did not think that his task ended there ; if it had, it rrould have b<?-eii comparatively easy. There was much more before him

I have hills far steeper to climb, valleys much darker to pacs through. . . I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me. The plank bed. the loathsome food, the hard ropes shredded into oakum till one's finger-tip?

grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each day begins and finishes, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, th? dreadful dross that makes

sorrow grotesque to look ai

the silence

tho solitude, the shame — each and all of the=-e things I ha^e to transform into a spiritual cxpeiience.

— Jeered at on a ftainvav

Platform.—

Teaching' himself this lesson day after day. schooling himself to learn again how to find happiness in. life, his mind w-enfc back to many of the incidents of hi* disgrace Even the most dreadful did not move him to bitterness. On November 13. 1895, I was brought doivn hero (Reading) from London. From two o'clock till half-past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform ot Clapham Junction in convict dress, and handcuffed, for the world ro look at. I had been taken out of the hospital ward without a moment's notice beiner given to me. Of all possible objects I was the niost grotesque. When people saw me they laughed. Each train as it came up swelled the audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement. That was, of course, before they knew who I was. As soon as they had been informed, they laughed still more. For half an hour I stood there in the g-re-y November rain, surrounded by a jeering mob. . . . Well, now I am really beginning to feel move regret for the people who laughed than for myself.

If he could write like that of those who behaved brutally to him, imagine what tender gratitude and reverence he felt for tho*-e who gave him of their sympath5 r .

He tells in the most touching language bow one who had known him (he docs not give the name) passed him in the corridor of the Law Courts when he had Seen taken there from prison to be examined as a bankrupt. Before the whole crowd, who in an action «o sweet ; aid simple hushed into siler.c?, ihis unp-imod good Samaritan giavely raised his hat as he passed the handcuffed prisoner. Mon have to heaven for smaller things than that. It was in thi* spirit, md with thU nw'" of lo\e. that tl'-e c amts knelt down to \va~h ih-e feet of the poor, or stooped to ki«s the leper on the cheek. . . When wisdom ha» been profitless to me. philosophy barren.

and the proverbs and phrases of those who | ha\o *ovght to qivo me consolation as dust and a«b<vs in mv mouth, tho memory of that httlp, lovely, silent act of love has unsealed for me all the wells of pity; I

made the desert blos-om like a rose, an<3 brought me out of the bit-cine--- <J lonely exile into hannonv with tne wouii'Vd, broken, and great hcan. of the world.